Drakensang Retro Review

Drakensang: The Dark Eye - The German Dungeons & Dragons

Ah, Dungeons & Dragons. Remember your first time exploring its vast worlds? Perhaps it was with a group of friends poring over a tabletop game, using an old version of the rules in adventures you will never forget. Or, perhaps you were like me, and you discovered D&D a bit later on in life, thanks to the fascinating entertainment medium we call video games. However you discovered it, it changed your life forever. At least, it did mine, as I started to realize just how deep the rabbit hole goes when it comes to lore, world-building and the wonderfully nerdy rule systems that can be used in the world of RPGs.

The first time I played it I was hooked. It was truly magical.

However, while many gamers here in the states were playing our D&D licensed games, across an ocean in a lovely country known as Germany, Germans were playing something else. Something different. It was still fantasy, but it was a bit more grounded in reality. Low-fantasy, if you will. It still had magic and dwarves and elves, but the fantasy world was a bit more like our own world in a way, with a focus more on European-esque archetypes. The magic was a little less flashy and there weren't Magical Swords of Awesome in every chest you plundered, but it was still very much a vivid fantasy world. That unique world is called The Dark Eye.

Instead of Dungeons & Dragons, Germany has The Dark Eye, which is actually more popular in Germany than the classic D&D that most of us are familiar with. This universe is just as rich as D&D, if not more so, and fortunately for us Westerners, the 4th Edition of the rules have been translated to English, and some recent games have used the system. The unfortunate part of the story? - Games that use the TDE system are few and far between, and I'll cite a few games, such as the classics that most of you will be familiar with, the Realms of Arkania series. Games such as Blackguards 1 and 2 and the action-RPG, Demonicon, are 2 other modern examples where the ruleset has been applied and used for video game RPGs.

That's a scarce few compared to how many D&D games I could name.

All hope is not lost, however. Thankfully, a game like Drakensang exists, to bring us into the mystical world of Aventuria and give us a closer glimpse at how this universe operates in an RPG video game.

And oh, what a game it is!

Drakensang is a game that takes place in The Dark Eye universe, released in 2009 and adapts the pen-and-paper version of the 4th edition rule-set to be used in a video game adaptation. The end result is a game that is very unique due to its clever ruleset, and if one takes the time to thoroughly read the manual and try and understand its workings, can definitely start to enjoy this somewhat foreign (in more ways than one) world. Thankfully, the game has an English translation, and although there are a few bumps in the road regarding the translation, most of the game is well-translated and won't do much to get in the way of your enjoyment.

The Dark Eye system really makes Drakensang sing. The game does a great job of adapting the pen-and-paper rules to suit this video game world, and that is probably single-handedly my favorite aspect of the game. The rules are wonderful, especially if you are familiar with Dungeons & Dragons, as they have a lot of familiar, juicy stats that affect your character, as well as a few curveballs in the mix with stats such as "Cleverness" and "Courage". There are plenty of Talents, Combat Abilities, Magic Talents and more to pore over and enjoy, and the game allows free customization of nearly every statistic in the game, if you have enough Experience Points to cover the cost of increasing it. There is also a deep inventory system, with plenty of 'mundane' items that may come in handy later on in your adventure, crafting materials, consumables and everything else you'd come to expect from a game that shares many similarities with the way Dungeons & Dragons works.

The Talent system is really quite beautiful and deserves some praise. There are various Talents for different categories, such as Social talents, like Seduce, Fast Talk and Haggle , or Artisan talents, such as Blacksmithing and Alchemy. The absolute best feature of this system is that not only are these Talents useful for the minute-to-minute gameplay, such as crafting or influencing the dice rolls to determine the outcome of the specific Talent, but they also feature prominently in the game's skill check system, which features nearly every skill being useful in some interactions with various NPCs in the game. For example, if you have a high enough Seduce skill, you can seduce a person into giving you extra information for a quest, or new information that otherwise wouldn't be available to you. Train your Animal Lore talent and perhaps you will stumble upon a quest that offers a chance to interact with an animal in a way that only those skilled in the Talent would be able to do. It seems that nearly every interaction with an NPC in the game orbits around this skill checks system, and it greatly enhances the role-playing possibilities, the character customization as well as the overall interaction with the NPCs and how you solve quests.

Combat is an intense proposition that also makes heavy use of dice rolls. In fact, dice rolls are used for every action in the game, doing a great job of sticking to the pen-and-paper feel of the rules and catering to us die-hard RPG fans. The combat is Real-Time-With-Pause, which means you can pause the game at any time to issue commands to your companions, of whom you'll be traveling with in parties of up to 4 characters, with other characters left behind at your base. Special Combat Talents, Magic Talents and normal attacks can be used in battle, and since the game is quite challenging at times, especially in boss fights or rare monster encounters, managing the Talents in a proper way could mean the difference between a character living or being incapacitated, as well as swing the outcome of a tough battle.

Exploration is another fun aspect of the game, and in Drakensang it is done in a way that allows some "off the beaten path" exploration, yet keeps things organized enough that you will always have a strong tie to the story and a reason for doing what you're doing. That said, there are also some side quests to keep you busy, and the game opens up to a large city fairly early on, so you're able to explore it and do the quests at your leisure. There are many things to find around every corner, and while no one will confuse this game with an open-world RPG, it does a nice job of rewarding you for exploring its nooks and crannies. Head into the back alley in the poor district of the city and you may find a shady character who will sell you thieving supplies. Head to a spot on your map that you weren't directly sent to via a quest and you may find a corpse with a special note on it leading to new content. You can even find a Dwarf with a barrel over his head that needs your help! (Seriously, you will get a nice chuckle out of this quest!).

Speaking of humor, the game delivers a good dose of this as well, and doesn't take itself *too* seriously, although both humor and seriousness are explored in this epic RPG adventure. Epic is a good word to use here, and the game's tone and feel reminds me a lot of the Baldur's Gate series, with a bit more of a fairy-tale atmosphere. In fact, the first large city you encounter in the game, Ferdok, reminded me a bit of the classic city of Baldur's Gate, although perhaps not as sprawling. The game seems to be in large part cut from the same cloth as classics like BG, and the scope here is quite vast. Along the epic journey, the game will keep you smiling with genuinely funny humor at times, and it sprinkles this in just enough to really create an absolutely charming atmosphere and storybook aura.

Another great aspect of the game is the party management. Health auto-regenerates after battle, but you'll have to keep a close eye on various ailments and status effects your party members can get from doing battle. You'll have to carry bandages to tend to wounds, as too many wounds can kill your characters. You'll also have to use items like soap to clean "stink" status ailments, and there are also plenty of poisons and other negative status ailments that you'll have to contend with. Keeping your party alive outside of combat is just as important as the actual combat you will be doing. Trying to plow through a dungeon with a character with 4 wounds, severe gangrene and other ailments will be much more difficult, since all the negative status effects decrease your fighting abilities in different ways. The end result is a system that puts a bit more of an emphasis on keeping your adventures healthy and in top fighting shape between battles than most other games have attempted to do.

The lore and world of Aventuria are two more areas where Drakensang shines brightly. There are various sects of humans, from Thorwalians to Tulamides, as well as elves, dwarves, ogres, orks, goblins and more. There are undead creatures summoned by foul necromancers, giant wolfrats that hunt in packs and get more dangerous the deeper underground you go, and even giant amoebas that squirm across the ground in a most unpleasant way. There are the typical giant spiders, but you don't really want to see one of them at early levels, since a full-grown Emerald Spider is a nasty foe. Nearly everything can incapacitate you if you aren't careful, so keeping on top of this dangerous world is a must at all times. There are 20 different archetypes to create a character and many unique classes, such as the Alchemist or Charlatan, and the character archetypes are all interesting and add unique flair to the Dark Eye world. You can explore the various sects of humans and other characters in the game via books or doing some research into the TDE universe on the good old internet.

With all this praise, there are naturally some criticisms I can make about the game as well. At times the game can feel a little tedious, particularly in combat against foes such as certain giant amoebas. The reason for this is that the amoebas will have large health pools, inflict very little damage themselves, yet take a lot of melee damage to kill. To counter this with a positive note, the game forces you to be careful about handling these foes, because if you attract them and fight them in groups, they go from tedious to deadly. 

The translation is not perfect and there are a few bumps in the road, mainly in some dialogues that sound a bit strange. Some of the dialogue does not read as entirely natural, but overall it is done to a competent level and these quirks are not the norm throughout the game, thankfully.

Drakensang is first and foremost an RPG, and it shows in pretty much every aspect of the game. You're not going to mistake this game for an action-adventure, an action game, a shooter (obviously!), or any other sort of genre. This is a deep, complex and greatly rewarding role-playing game that lets you play a role at every opportunity. It's a bit slow-paced, and it lets you 'smell the roses' with its captivating scenery, beautifully apparent atmospheres and rich settings. One of my favorite aspects of the game is that it is not going to rush you through or overwhelm you with fast mechanics. This is an RPG for someone who wants to relax with a good book, err...game, and have a nice little adventure in a new fantasy world. With the mixture of capable story elements, a great stat system and foundation, challenging gameplay, every RPG element you have come to love in RPG game design and more, the game excels at immersing you in a beautiful world and screams from the mountaintops, "I Am An RPG, Hear Me Roar!".

So, if you have some spare time and want to check out an epic, unique and complex RPG, akin to the greats like Baldur's Gate, then do yourself a favor and check out Drakensang: The Dark Eye. For just $9.99 on Steam, it's an outstanding deal.

Happy adventuring and I'll see you in Aventuria!